Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Here is yet another Mahyco-Monsanto tale, one of defiance and breaking the law even as the scientific community looks on. Monsanto is the world’s largest investor in seed and biotechnology research investing $1 billion/`5,000 crores and is also the leading producer of genetically engineered (GE) seed. It provides the technology in 90 per cent of the world’s genetically engineered seeds.

The Mahyco seed company had approached the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) in its meeting on January 12, 2011 for permission to produce seed of genetically engineered cotton containing a herbicide tolerant gene. This non-Bt cotton was not proposed to be released as a herbicide tolerant (HT) crop but to be used as the refuge crop for when BG II RR Flex cotton is finally approved for cultivation. Currently it is in trials. BG II RR Flex refers to Bollgard II, a cotton hybrid that carries two Bt genes as well as a gene conferring tolerance to Roundup Ready, which is a herbicide. This double Bt, single HT cotton is a stacked cotton hybrid, which is piling on Bt genes to stay ahead of the bollworms that are fast catching up and becoming resistant to the Bt toxin inside the plant, which is meant to kill them.Mahyco had already applied to GEAC in September 2010 to produce the same seed and had been turned down on the grounds that the hybrid had not cleared the regulatory process and did not have permission for environmental release. Therefore, according to the Rules of 1989, which govern biotechnology, Mahyco could not be given permission to produce seed of the unapproved cotton. But did Mahyco accept the GEAC ruling and desist from using the unapproved HT cotton seed? No it did not.It went ahead, cocking a snook at GEAC, made seed of the unapproved non-Bt RR Flex cotton and is using it to plant the refuge crop in the trials of its double Bt, single HT cotton hybrid BG II RR Flex. A 20 per cent “refuge crop” of non-Bt cotton is required by the law, to be planted along with Bt cotton so that the invading bollworm has a non-toxic cotton to feed on, to delay the build up of resistance to the toxic Bt cotton. The Mahyco Company is merrily carrying on using the unapproved cotton as the refuge planting in the trials of its new double Bt, single HT cotton hybrid even after GEAC had denied it permission to do this.So why is Mahyco breaking the law to plant (the unapproved) herbicide tolerant cotton as the refuge for its double Bt, single HT cotton hybrid? Because it slyly admits what we have been pointing out all along, that planting a herbicide tolerant crop, like the new Bt-HT cotton, and using the matched herbicide (Roundup Ready) during its cultivation will destroy all the neighbouring crops and the adjoining biodiversity. This will happen when Roundup Ready lands on them when fields of the HT crops are being sprayed. Only plants carrying the HT gene can survive the herbicide spray. Since the other crops and the surrounding biodiversity do not contain the HT gene, they will die when the Roundup Ready hits them.HT crops can only be cultivated if all the other crops in the region are also HT (which is an impossibility), otherwise they will be destroyed when they catch the Roundup Ready spray drifting in the wind or if they get sprayed inadvertently. In several articles and submissions I have made to policy bodies, this is why I have argued that the herbicide-tolerant genetic trait must not be permitted for use in India. First because it will displace agriculture labour (weeding provides wage labour), second because it will destroy all the surrounding biodiversity that rural communities use as food, fodder, medicinal plants etc. and third because of what Mahyco-Monsanto now themselves admit, that Roundup Ready sprays will destroy all the other non-HT crops in the neighbourhood.The Director of the Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR) in Nagpur acknowledges the problem with HT crops, saying that the refuge for the Bt-HT cotton must be planted with HT cotton during commercial cultivation. Otherwise the refuge will be killed by Roundup Ready spray drifts. According to the minutes of the 106th GEAC meeting of January 12, 2011, the CICR director’s views are recorded as follows: “If the Refugia in BG II RR Flex comprise only of non-Bt cotton without RR-Flex (HT trait), there is every likely possibility of the refugia patch getting destroyed due to spray drift or inadvertent application of ‘Round-up’ on the ‘non-RR-Flex-non-Bt-cotton’”. So the scientists admit there is a problem with the implementation of HT crops in real life. The CICR director, however, does not propose a strategy for how other crops and biodiversity should be protected when Mahyco’s new Bt-HT cotton is planted commercially and Roundup Ready is widely used in the fields.Because Mahyco has blatantly defied the directions of the GEAC not to produce HT cotton seed until it gets regulatory approval, the regulators have decided to issue a showcause notice to the company, seeking explanation on why penal action should not be initiated against it under the Environmental Protection Act (EPA), for violations of the Rules of 1989. The Rules of 1989 are framed under the EPA that is the umbrella legislation.It will be interesting to see how this story unfolds. Will the GEAC really follow through and take action against Mahyco for its defiant stand and blatant violations? Or will Mahyco walk home free as it has done in the past? It is openly mentioned that the Mahyco-Monsanto gang are used to getting their way with regulatory agencies like the GEAC. Do they indeed get away with things? The grapevine is full of gossip and names are mentioned openly. This situation is untenable for a society that lays claim to scientific achievement. After the disgraceful performance of the scientific community in the Bt brinjal case, let them redeem their reputation and tighten up the regulation of genetically modified crops so that it is rescued from being the farce that it is today.

Dr Suman Sahai, a genetic scientist who has served on the faculty of the Universities of Chicago and Heidelberg, is convenor of the Gene Campaign

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Almost a billion people in Asia and Africa are plagued by hunger. The global firms pushing the “New Vision for Agriculture” have little to do with sustainable agriculture or solving the problem of hunger. Their goal is to corner resources like land and water as well as public sector finances and make these work to earn big profits for themselves

Seventeen corporations belonging to the consumer industries community of the World Economic Forum have announced their intention to enter the food business in the name of the poor. The alliance includes the world’s biggest life science corporations like Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont and BASF, the world’s largest food commodities traders like Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge and Cargill, processed food giants like Kraft Foods, Nestlé and PepsiCo, global retailers like Walmart and Metro in addition to diversified transnational corporations like SABMiller, Unilever, Yara International, Coca-Cola and General Mills.

These colossal entities that control the food chain starting from the genetically modified (GM) seed, fertilizer and pesticide to the grain and finally to the cakes and biscuits in large retail stores hope to become the saviours of global agriculture and the defenders of food security. Without a shred of embarrassment, they assert that their project works to “advance market-based solutions to agricultural sustainability”.

They call it the New Vision for Agriculture, and they have hijacked all the clichés of food security to portray their intent: “… over the past two years, food security and economic crises have highlighted both the urgent need and the potential for developing sustainable agricultural systems”. Or “Nearly one billion people — one out of six globally — lack access to adequate food and nutrition” . Their mantra to feed the 9 billion people expected to be on the planet by 2050 is to increase agricultural productivity through investment, innovation and the right policy framework! The sustainable agriculture growth they profess to initiate is to be achieved by market-based solutions.

It’s quite another matter that the poor are barely linked to the market except as consumers because they have nothing to sell and little means to buy with. The crisis of food is exemplified in India by the twin tragedies of rotting grain in buffer stocks and families suffering from endemic hunger. Almost a billion people in Asia and Africa are plagued by hunger even as large food stocks are traded in international markets by the very people who are the stewards of this New Vision of Agriculture, the Cargills, the Archer Daniel Midlands, the Bunges and so on.

The alliance claims that it seeks a “win-win” approach that leverages and multiplies each party’s investment. Revealed here is the real face of the New Vision for Agriculture, its corporate face that has little do with sustainable agriculture or solving the problem of hunger and malnutrition, but everything to do with cornering resources like land and water as well as public sector finances and make it work to earn big profits for themselves.

For instance, this New Vision for Agriculture has struck a deal in that part of Tanzania, (the south) which has bountiful water, good soils, favourable climate and a good infrastructure linked to regional and international markets. In short, ideal conditions for commercial agriculture. This is not the area that needs help because the conditions there are favourable anyway. It’s the sub-Saharan countries that need a leg up to improve agriculture, food security and nutrition but the New Vision for Agriculture is not going there.

What the New Vision proposes in Tanzania reads more like the land grab that is taking place all over Africa than any activity with the philanthropic intent of solving hunger. Land grabs are rampant in the favourable, fertile parts of Africa, where African governments and foreign corporations are striking unholy deals to corner large tracts of land belonging to small farmers. This is being leased out to produce food to be shipped out, not solve hunger at home.

By its own candid admission, the New Vision project proposes to involve itself only with profitable, modern commercial farming and agri-business. This too not everywhere but only in selected areas and only with crops with high market potential. According to current planning, the project leaders will identify “profitable, scalable agricultural and services businesses, with major benefits for smallholder farmers and local communities”. The politically correct categories of smallholder farmers and local communities are mentioned at appropriate places (although not too often). It is alleged the proposed projects will bring them major benefits, though how this will happen is not spelled out. The New Vision does not plan to establish anything in areas that require improvement but build only on existing operations mobilising and leveraging both public and private-sector investments into those opportunities that are viable. No talk here of investing in improving the viability of those units that are not so viable!

As part of their food security programme in Vietnam, the New Vision for Agriculture has made plans to develop coffee, tea, fish, fruit, vegetables and grain commodities for regional and global markets. A task force has been set up to oversee implementation. Members of the task force include Bunge, Metro, Cargill, Cisco, DuPont, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Monsanto and Unilever.

The current crop of New Visions and Alliances against Hunger look like con jobs. Curiously though, neither the crops selected to alleviate food insecurity nor the strategy to achieve this goal seems to strike the involved governments as the slightest bit incongruous. It says something about the state of affairs in the food domain that this in your face brazenness has not met with howls of protest from international agencies or national governments. On the contrary, even India, with its massive food security issues, is rushing to partner in this exercise. Shouldn’t we be doing something to stop this blatant exploitation? Isn’t anyone in any government thinking?

The writer is the Chief Editor of Gene News, published by the Gene Campaign Foundation

Friday, March 4, 2011

The GEAC has decided to issue a show cause notice to the Mahyco seed company for defying its directions and going ahead with using a seed for which it did not have regulatory approval. The Mahyco seed company had approached the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) at its meeting on 12 January, 2011 for permission to produce seed of genetically engineered cotton containing a herbicide tolerant gene. This non Bt cotton was to be used as the refuge crop for when BG II-RR Flex cotton was finally approved for cultivation. Currently it is in trials. BG II-RR Flex refers to Bollgard II, a cotton hybrid that carries two Bt genes as well as a gene conferring tolerance to Roundup Ready which is a herbicide.

Mahyco had also applied to GEAC in September 2010 for permission to produce the same seed and had been turned down on the grounds that the cotton they wanted to use had not cleared the regulatory process. Therefore according to the Rules of 1989 which govern bio-technology , Mahyco could not be given permission to produce the seed of the unapproved cotton. But didMahyco accept the GEAC ruling and desist from using the unapproved HT cotton seed? No it did not.

It went ahead, cocking a snook at the GEAC, and made seed of the unapproved non-Bt RR-Flex-Cotton ( containing the HT gene) and is using it to plant the refuge crop in the trials of its double Bt, single HT cotton hybrid . A 20 percent ‘refuge crop’ of non Bt cotton is required by the Rules of 1989, to be planted along with Bt cotton so that the invading bollworm has a non toxic cotton to feed on, to delay the build up of resistance to the toxic Bt cotton. The Mahyco company is merrily using the unapproved cotton as the refuge planting in the trials of its new double Bt, single HT cotton hybrid even after GEAC had denied it permission! So why is Mahyco breaking the law to plant the unapproved herbicide tolerant cotton as the refuge for its double Bt, single HT cotton hybrid ? Because it slyly admits what we have been pointing out all along, that planting a herbicide tolerant crop, like the new Bt-HT cotton, and using the matched herbicide (Roundup Ready) during its cultivation will destroy all theneighboring crops and the adjoining biodiversity. This will happen when the herbicide lands on them when fields of the HT crops are being sprayed. Since the other crops and the biodiversity do not contain the herbicide tolerant gene, they will die when the Roundup Ready hits them.HT crops can only be cultivated if all the other crops in the region are also HT (an impossibility),otherwise they will be destroyed when they catch the Roundup Ready spray drifting in the wind or get sprayed inadvertently. That is why in several articles and in the submissions I have made to policy bodies, I have argued that the herbicide tolerant genetic trait must not be permitted for use in India. First because it will displace agriculture labor (weeding provides wage labor), second, because it will destroy all the surrounding biodiversity that rural communities use as food, fodder, medicinal plants etc. and third because of what Mahyco-Monsanto now themselves admit, that Roundup Ready sprays will destroy all the other Non HT crops in the neighborhood.The Director of the Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR) in Nagpur acknowledges this problem inherent in HT crops, and agrees that the refuge for the Bt-HT cotton must be planted with HT cotton during commercial cultivation, otherwise the refuge will be killed off by Roundup Ready spray drifts. The CICR director however does not propose a strategy for how other crops and biodiversity should be protected when Mahyco’s new Bt-HT cotton is planted commercially and Roundup Ready is widely used in the fields.

Because Mahyco has blatantly defied the directions of the GEAC- not to use the HT cotton seed until it gets regulatory approval - the regulators have decided to issue a ‘Show Cause’ notice to the company, seeking explanation on why penal action should not be initiated against it, forviolation of the ‘Rules of 1989. It will be interesting to see how this story unfolds. Will the GEAC really follow through and take action against Mahyco for its defiant stand and blatant violations? Or will Mahyco walk home free as it has always done in the past?

About Me

Dr. Suman Sahai, who has had a distinguished scientific career in the field of genetics, is a recipient of the Padma Shri,the Borlaug Award, Outstanding Woman Achiever awards, the BirbalSahni Gold Medal and the Order of the Golden Ark .
Dr. Sahai is founder Chairperson of the Gene Campaign which is a leading research and advocacy organization, working on issues relating to food, nutrition and livelihoods. She has published extensively on science and policy issues and is a member of several national policy forums on scientific research and education, biodiversity and environment, biotechnology and bioethics as well as intellectual property rights.
Dr Sahai chaired India’s Planning Commission Task Force on ‘Agro biodiversity and Genetically Engineered Organisms’, for the XIth Plan. She was a member of the Steering Committee of the National Biodiversity Board , the Expert Committee on Biotechnology Policy and the Bioethics Committee of the Indian Council of Medical Research.She has served on the Research Advisory Committees of national scientific institutions.
Dr Sahai can be reached at www.genecampaign.org and mail@genecampaign.org